Major players making moves

Neste Oil supplied its first batch of renewable diesel to the U.S. market. The company says the NExBTL was produced at its Porvoo refinery in Finland from waste fats.

Matti Lehmus, Neste Oil’s executive vice president of oil products and renewables, said, "We are very pleased to see that legislation on renewable fuels, and our ability to meet the import regulations for these types of fuels, are progressing in various markets. This enables us to participate and contribute to the greenhouse gas reduction efforts around the world.”

Lehmus went on to say that the occasion was an important milestone for Neste Oil, and the U.S. market for high-quality biofuels is a major one. “We are also proud of our contribution to the U.S. renewable fuel standard,” Lehmus added. “The RFS regulation enables and encourages the reduction of greenhouse gases and diversification of the U.S. fuel supply. NExBTL renewable diesel is an ideal low-carbon fuel for the U.S. market as it is completely fungible with the existing extensive infrastructure—and is accepted within the existing refinery and pipeline distribution system.”

Neste Oil sold 305,000 tons of renewable diesel to several dozen customers in more than 10 countries during the first quarter of 2012.

In other advanced biofuel news, Novozymes and Maabjerg Energy Concept entered into an agreement making Novozymes a partner in the consortium, alongside national energy giant DONG Energy A/S and local utility companies Vestforsyning A/S, Struer Forsyning A/S and Nomi I/S.

Novozymes has joined taken a place on the board. The consortium will use Novozymes’ biotech expertise to design a new biorefinery that will generate biogas, advanced ethanol, electricity and heat from household waste and straw.

The plant will be able to produce approximately 94 million cubic meters of biogas, much of which can be upgraded to natural gas, and 19 million gallons of ethanol, as well as district heating for 20,000 households and electricity for several thousand homes. The Maabjerg plant is located in western Denmark near the cities of Struer and Holstebro in Jutland.